Francine & Earl

EXTRA #1: The Proposal

(A/N Hi everyone! This is just a quick little one shot of Francine and Jonathon when he proposes, told from the perspective of an outsider. I wanted to celebrate Francine & Earl hitting #637 in Short Story and almost 5.6k reads and 594 votes. Thank you all for reading, and Earl's little one shot will be coming soon!)

"Ten says he does it before the months over."

A scoff.

"Twenty that he does it before the end of the week."

The other girls hummed in agreement, nods of approval passed around in the huddle of crouched bodies. They were in one of Dempsey's many parks, hair scraped back from their faces in tight ponytails and grass stains ruining their shirts. Their little group didn't have a name yet (they couldn't agree on one) so they just went with the flow and had fun. Right now, their fun involved the two adults standing off to the side near some benches, too wrapped up in each other to notice the kids gambling when they should be warming up.

"Where are you even going to get twenty dollars?" The girl who spoke first asked, rolling her eyes at being one upped (again) by the curly haired girl who claimed attention as soon as she walked into a room. She let her eyes stray to their coach for a moment, letting her frustrated expression slip off her face when she saw Francine laughing. Her staring was interrupted by the curly haired girl's snort.

"Where are you going to get ten, Abigail?" Selena said with a cruel twist of her lips , a few other girls on their team stifling their laughs, and then paused. "Unless kids with deadbeat parents like yours get an allowance."

Abigail's face burned in embarrassment. It always came back to this. It was always about how she couldn't afford the jerseys they practiced in and had to rely on Francine to be nice enough to give her one, how she had been wearing the same hand-me-down t-shirt to practice for the past few months, how she never really went on the team outings to the movies or mall a few cities over.  Abigail was from the wrong side of Dempsey, and everyone loved to remind her of that fact.

"Hey girls, I don't see anyone running laps!"

Everyone but Francine.

The girls shuffled out of their huddle, grudgingly stretching a bit before starting to run around the park. Abigail trailed behind them, letting Selena and her lackeys push past her.  She couldn't help but think that Francine was still saving her, even when she didn't know it. 

The woman had caught her stealing a bag of chips at one of the stores owned by Grayson Waters. Abigail had stood there, eyes wide and hand gripped around food that she didn't even want, as the tall blonde stared her down. Francine was intimidating and most people knew not to cross her, but after looking over Abigail's thin frame and over-sized clothes, her eyes softened.

"C'mon kid," Francine said, gesturing with her head toward the bakery aisle. She began walking, not bothering to see if the young girl was following her as if she knew the child would. Abigail clutched the chips tighter in her hands, stumbling to catch up with Francine's longer steps to prove her right.

"Whe- Where are we going, Ms. Waters?" Abigail finally gained the courage to ask as she looked at the clean linoleum of the floor. 

Francine stopped.

"To get you something more filling than a bag of Doritos," Francine said as if it was obvious, making Abigail's cheeks burn with an embarrassed flush. "And call me Francine."

A hesitation.

"Okay."

After going around and getting enough to make sandwiches for a few days, Francine stopped her before she left the store, stooping down to her level.